Tories woo ethnic minorities

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, APRIL. 19. One day Britain could have an Asian or a black Prime Minister and he would be a Tory - just as the first Jewish and the first woman Prime Ministers were Tories, the Conservative party boasted on Tuesday even as it emerged that it planned to field only 14 non- white candidates in the coming general elections, mostly in ``unwinnable'' seats.

Only two ethnic minority candidates - Mr. Mohammed Riaz and Mr. Shailesh Vara - have a chance of winning and if wishes were horses one of them could well ride into Downing Street one ``fine'' morning, which itself is a rare occurrence in this part of the world. Both are being groomed to project a multicultural image of the party as it tries to broaden its appeal. While Mr. Riaz, who is a businessman, has been appointed adviser to the Tory chief, Mr. William Hague on race issues, Mr. Vara - a Ugandan Asian solicitor - got top billing at the last party conference where he spoke in defence of its stand on asylum seekers. The boast about a future Tory Asian Prime Minister comes even as the party is under increased pressure to stop ``pandering'' to racial prejudice amid reports that Tory activists in some areas were distributing ``racist'' literature in the run-up to the elections. Despite the central leadership's warning to Tory candidates not to use racially provocative language in their election campaign, local party activists were reported to be persisting with hardline rhetoric on immigration and asylum - the two issues on which Tories claim to be more in tune with the public mood than their liberal critics.

However, Tory leaders sought to dismiss this as a local phenomenon saying grass roots activists of all parties tended to pander to neighbourhood sensitivities. They insisted that the controversial leaflets were not authorised by the central leadership which remained committed to a multiracial agenda that could one day produce a non-white Tory Premier. ``In the same way that the Conservative Party was the first party to have a Prime Minister of Jewish background, the first party to have a woman, we're quite likely to be the first to have a prominent black or Asian politician as our Prime Minister,'' a Tory M.P., Mr. Peter Bottomley said.

The Opposition, however, was not impressed arguing that similar talk by Mr. Hague in the past did not prevent him from making his infamous ``foreign land'' speech in which he accused the Labour of turning Britain into a foreign country because of its ``soft'' approach to immigration and asylum. ``His critics point out that he is willing to do anything to steal Labour working class votes,'' a commentator said. Labour and Liberal Democrats have taken exception to a Tory pamphlet which accuses Labour of being soft on the ``floods of bogus asylum seekers'' and ``importing foreign nurses with HIV'' to meet local shortages. Central leaders dissociated themselves from the pamphlet saying it was written by an ``inexperienced'' activist who had since been told not to distribute it. The jury is still out on it.

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Section  : International
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